


Echo of a Gunshot

by geniewithwifi



Series: All At Once [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Felicity is kidnapped, Oliver saves her, Post 3x01, Post Season 3, Sorta follows canon. Except olicity didnt break up, established olicity, fast paced, ficisode, on the edge of your seat kind of story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-25 00:38:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3790120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewithwifi/pseuds/geniewithwifi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Vertigo runs rampant through Starling, Felicity is kidnapped by the man himself, <i>again</i>. Can Oliver get to her in time and will she live to see the next morning?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echo of a Gunshot

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a small six sentence drabble. However, I ended it on a cliffhanger and it made everyone mad. So I did a next one and a next one and turned into a full blown 12 part fic, all based on prompts. See if you can tell where I left off. 
> 
> A big thanks to everyone who sent in prompts: **flash-smoak-and-arrows, essenceofheroism, olicityalamode, mylunarsoltice, andcreation, bluemorgana, jedichick09, dust2dust34, and many others** who I forget in helping me create this story. Some of this is their work and should get credit.
> 
> Originally under the title "Gunshot" on tumblr, this is all twelve parts plus a bonus scene at the end. Takes place sometime after 3x19 of _Arrow_ but is not Canon compliant. Alternate Universe in which most of the Ra's Al Ghul events never take place in season 3 and Olicity never broke up in 3x01. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Reviews feed the muse!

"Could you just shut up for a minute?!"

Digg yelled at him, reaching up to shove him back before thinking twice about it, remembering what happened last time. 

“Felicity was the only one who could go. Your comm was trashed, I was unconscious and she was the only one able to go to water treatment plant. If Vertigo gets in the city water supply, then the whole city is toast. Nothing could save it, definitely not a man with just a bow and arrow.”

Oliver grit his teeth, hands clamping on his bow. “She should be back by now. Why isn’t she back?”

Dig shook his head. “I don’t even know when she left.”

That was when Oliver’s phone rang. Felicity’s picture flashed on the front. He breathed out, relaxing. She was safe.

“Hey, thank goodness, I was worried. Don’t do something like that again you hear me?”

Instead of Felicity’s golden tones replying back to him, he hear a cold, hard voice instead. 

“You mean something like this?”

Oliver heard an echoing gunshot in the background. It would sound in his dreams for years. 

"She's not dead. Yet. But call the cops and she will be."

Oliver could hear her screams coming from the phone and he gestured wildly to Diggle. “Trace it” He mouthed to him frantically. 

Oliver started to pace, up and down the foundry. “What. do. you. want.”

“Oh, many things. Love, happiness, the normal things humans want. Right now? Revenge. You took my brother from me you son of a bitch and so I’m going to take this blonde girl from you, especially looking at that giant ring on her finger, she’s important to you. And I want to take away the things you care about. So, she’ll die…after I poison the city“.

Oliver hurled his phone across the room when he heard the call end. It hit and shattered against the salmon ladder, spraying pieces all over the room. If Felicity were here she would scold him for improper use of technology. How he wished she actually was. Instead, because of him, she was in the grasps of a mad man.  

“Dig! Did you get a trace on it?”

Dig shook his head. “I only got part way. It’s in the west part of the Glades but that’s all I can tell you.”

Oliver was already halfway out the door by the time Dig finished. 

"Hold on Felicity. Just hold on. I'm coming for you." Oliver muttered to himself. He was a man on a mission and his mission was saving the woman he loved.

 “Oliver! Wait.” Digg called him back.

He grabbed the door just before it could close and lock behind him.

“What?!” He replied tersely, in full Arrow mode.

“Here, take a new comm, yours is currently busted. I’m not letting you go in there without backup. I think they might still be at the water plant. It’s in the west side of the Glades so it makes sense that they haven’t left”.

“On it!” In a flash, Oliver was out in the alley, mounting his motorcycle. Thankfully, the Ducati roared under him and in seconds, he was cruising seventy down a thirty miles per hour zone.  He clicked on his comm, connecting him to Diggle.

“Start at the water plant. If they’re not there then work out from there.”

“I know how to do a perimeter sweep, Diggle. Don’t confuse me with Roy.”

Diggle ignored his quip. “Felicity sent me instructions on how to manage her traffic and security cameras program."

“She was able to send you something?” Oliver was always proud of his girl but this went above and beyond. Was she able to do that with just a phone?

“No Oliver, this wasn’t today, this was weeks ago. She set up a system just in case something like this happened. She’s smart that way.”

 _Yeah_ , Oliver thought,  _just not street smart_. 

He wished he had never caught that drug dealer in the first place. He had been selling on the corner. Oliver thought it was just cocaine and was planning on giving him a warning to stop until he saw one of the customers pop one. The effects and the motions she had been doing gave him pause.

It was the influences of Vertigo.

One thing that Oliver hated the most was that drug. Many things that had gone wrong in his life were because of it. Thea’s arrest, Tommy quitting, Oliver almost dying-multiple times, Felicity being kidnapped, Dig being poisoned, an Italian restaurant being blown up, and all the consequences that came with each catastrophe.

Any mention of that drug was instantly and ruthlessly shut down. No more people would die or be hurt from that narcotic.

So Oliver had strung up the dealer, demanding the name of his supplier, and dropped him off at the Police Station. Lance had given a nod, (they were still on shaky terms after Lance had discovered the truth) and without a word admitted the dealer in lockup.

From there it had been a long vigorous chase. They had located the man through one of his lieutenants who had spilled the beans; Vertigo was primed to be released into the city’s water supply at midnight. Then man then killed himself by activating a bomb strapped to his chest. Oliver had barely gotten out of there, his comm destroyed in the explosion.

He had then returned to Diggle waking up—he had a run in with a nasty gunsman and was required to rest—and Felicity nowhere to be found, with a small sticky note stating “Went to water plant.”

Just thinking of the recklessness of it put his teeth on edge. They would have a very firm conversation of her risks if he got her back.

 _When_ he got her back.

The water plant echoed with the sound of his boots, but there was no sign of Felicity or the man who shot her.

 “Damn it,” he whispered, the sound echoing off the faint drippings of the water pipes. He could hear a faint rumble in the distance on the other side of the plant. Slowly he made his way around, avoiding water puddles and starting at any sudden sound. 

A crackling sound made him look down. Just underneath his boot was wedged a mixture of glass and metal.

They were glasses. Felicity’s glasses.

She had been here. 

The sound that ripped from Oliver’s throat was an inhuman sound, an animal one, a sound that comes from only the deepest, most earth-shattering grief that a human could experience. He was so close. 

His anger channeling through his veins, he crouched down, pulling out a flashlight. There. A foot print, fading quickly away, but still slightly wet. Maybe ten minutes.

“Dig! They’re here!”

“On my way.” Came the reply.

Oliver followed the trail out of the water plant. Every so often he would find another wet footprint, wetter than the first. Every so often he would find a spattering of blood that made his heart stop. It wasn’t fatal, he wound from what he could gather. He didn’t realize that some of the water puddles were tinged with red. 

He saw a large structure of pipes leading out of the building, twisting around each other before emptying into the channel.

Then as he walked closer, he heard the most gut wrenching scream.

He was outside the plant, on the north side near the canal. He could hear the crossing bells in the distance. Arrow notched and halfway drawn, Oliver quickly crept closer. 

He could hear Felicity sobbing, mostly in pain but he could detect a slight note of hysteria in her voice. 

“Please don’t do this. Please don’t contaminate the water!” Felicity cried out through her pain. 

“As soon as I kill your Arrow, it won’t matter. You’ll be dead and then I will get justice on this city as well. It may have been the Arrow that caught him, but it was the justice system that put him away for life”. Oliver heard a spitting sound. 

Peering around a corner, he could see them. Felicity on a bench, her wrists rubbed red from the ropes connecting to the metal frame, the twine turning orange. A dribble of spit dripped on her face. The man was lounging against the pipes, a gun in his fist, generally waving in her direction.

The monster in Oliver clamored for retribution. Nobody treated Felicity like that. Abuse him all they wanted but Felicity was _off-limits._

“Your brother was a killer! He killed innocent people for the fun of it and tried to say it was science!” She yelled tried to stand, but fell back into her seat, crying out from the pain coming from her hands.

“My brother was a genius! You’re going to pay for that one, little girl.” And before Oliver could let his arrow fly, the man shot her again, this time in the abdomen.

For the first time in Oliver's life, he was paralyzed.

 _No I can’t lose her. Not again. Never again_.

Oliver’s arrow hit his gun in the next instant, the weapon flying across the open area. The man swung to look at him, before pulling out a device. 

“Your choice Arrow! The girl or the city? Because if you touch her, I will press this button and the Vertigo will spill into the city’s water systems. Within days, the entire city will be suffering from the effects of my brother’s magnificent drug. There will be nothing you can do to stop it.”

Oliver hesitated. He couldn’t believe that he was even considering this. Felicity’s life for the city? There should be no choice to make.

But would she forgive him, her life for the city? If the entire city went under, Oliver knew she would rather be dead than for him to fail in his mission. She believed in him that much.    

However, her time was running out. Oliver needed to make a decision pronto. And for the first time in his low-expectations-of-living-long-enough-to-see-the-next-day life, he didn’t choose Felicity.

He hated himself all the more for it. 

The man could see the moment Oliver made his choice. He started running, daring Oliver to catch up to him. Quickly glancing over in Felicity’s direction, he noticed that she was still conscious, barely.

She was fading fast. 

Cursing under his breath, he threw a flechette at her hands, a prayer to the gods of archery and wicked aim that it would hit its target–the frayed piece of rope around one of her wrists. 

Apollo must have heard him because the sharp tip sliced through the rope, only barely skimming the edge of her skin. Blood welled up, and trickled down her wrists. 

Running towards her he stopped when she shook her head at him violently, She grimaced as it looked like she was about to lose consciousness. “No. Get him.” Felicity croaked, freeing her right hand. “I’m not worth it.”

In a rush, he grabbed her head, remorse paining him when she cried out, and whispered “You will always be worth it.” He kissed her, hard, like it was the last kiss in the world, then tore himself away. He could see at the corner of her eye her tearing off her coat to press against the wound in her abdomen. 

“Digg!” He clicked on the comm link has he raced after the fleeing man. “You better be here! North side of the water plant, near the river! She’s dy–” He couldn’t get the words out. “Felicity is injured. Get here. NOW!”

God help the world if she died. Oliver hoped that man had made peace with his maker. Because as soon as Oliver got that device away from him, he was a dead man. 

“Oliver I’m one minute out.”

It didn’t take Oliver long to catch up with the man, but every second felt like an eternity. His footstep sounded loud in his ears, splashes of water spraying out from under his boots. The man glanced back and Oliver took his opportunity, shooting a lasso arrow to catch the guy.

The Count Vertigo 2.0, as Felicity would have called him, tripped, landing heavily on the cement. Switching his bow to his left hand, Oliver reached down to drag the man to his feet. 

“Nuhuhuh” The man turned over before Oliver could pull him up, grinning manically, holding the device up and waving it in from of Oliver. Horrified, Oliver watched as 2.0 pressed a button, the  _click_  freezing his blood. 

“Might as well take the girl and the city. That way, no matter what, I win.” Oliver stumbled back, denial sounding from his lips. 

“You evil twisted bastard!” In revenge for _his_ city, for _his_ Felicity, and mostly because he would never admit defeat, Oliver drew an arrow, planning to eliminate this slimy worm. His vow to Tommy be damned. He had already failed in his vow, putting an arrow in this guy wouldn’t matter.  Before he could knock it though, 2.0 rolled all the way off the pier, to the dark water below. 

“NO!” Oliver ran to the edge, searching frantically for any type of movement. There was nothing. He was gone.

His comm clicked. “Oliver…” Dig’s voice sounded hesitant, choked.

“Tell me she’s alright Dig. TELL ME!”

“I can’t…” The rest of Dig’s words were drowned in the rushing sound that filled Oliver’s ears. It felt like a bomb had gone off; he couldn’t hear a damn thing.

Senseless, he tottered to the water’s edge, seeking to loose himself to waves. It’s how it started, the sinking of the Gambit. That is how it should end. Surrounded by the endless feeling of helplessness. His city and Felicity both were dying. And there was no point to his misery without either of them.

“OLIVER!” Diggle’s voice cut over the bleakness, jolting him out of the dark spiral he had been set on. 

“She’s still alive!”

Turning, he sprinted back the way he had come, desperate to reach her side. While running he couldn’t feel anything but the blood rushing in his veins and her named repeated as a litany in his brain.  _Felicity. Felicity. Felicity._  

He skidded to a stop when he saw her, crumpled to the ground like a rag doll. Her leg was twisted around, and her skin was as white as the wedding dress she was supposed to wear in a month. Surrounding her was a rapidly growing large pool of blood. 

Diggle was kneeling in said puddle, hands fervently pressing against her stomach frantically trying to stem the bleeding. But the liquid wasn’t stopping. Oliver could see that Digg’s hands were dark red with fresh life. 

“Felicity,” a ghost of a breath crossed his lips, spurring him into reaction. Roughly, he pushed Dig aside, not caring about the look that John gave him. Oliver’s love-of-his-life’s life was at stake here, no time for politeness. 

Right before Oliver could take over from Dig though, Oliver looked down at her legs, automatically checking for injuries, something that was a force of habit with him. 

“Shit.” He swore when he noticed the dark flow on her thigh.

Diggle’s head whipped up. “Wha–”

Oliver interrupted him impatiently. “Remember that first scream? That first gunshot? He shot her leg and nicked the femoral artery. She’s bleeding out at _two_ places. I can’t have you to get the van. We need to call an ambulance.”

“Oliver-”

“Dig. We can’t move her. There are only the two of us. Make the call.” Oliver then ignored him as Diggle called 911, Oliver’s hands fisting to stop the flow of blood. When inspiration hit him, he unzipped his hood, tearing it off and tossing it aside. Next came the black shirt which was then stuffed in her bullet wound. 

A cry of pain at the increased pressure alerted Oliver to Felicity’s abrupt wakefulness from unconsciousness. “OLIVER!”  Immediately, Oliver freed one hand to run though her hair. Her blood on his hands turned her blonde locks rust color. 

“Hey. It’s okay, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, I’m right here Felicity, right here.”

“Oliver” Her voice was raw from screaming. “The- the…”

“What?” What was she trying to tell him? He lent closer to her mouth. 

“The city. Did he poison-  _cough_ - the city?”

Regret and hatred for himself for forgetting about the crucial fact, and even more hatred for Vertigo 2.0 for putting Oliver in that situation, blazed red-hot through him. 

Maybe there was still time. Maybe he could save them both. Dig could read the emotions on his face, the hope mixing with hopelessness.

“Oliver, there isn’t time for a choice here… it’s her or the city.” 

“I will always pick her. Always. Dig, there isn’t a choice. She’s my fiancée.”

“But that won’t matter if we’re all dead! I know she’s your fiancée and you’re only thinking about her, but I’m thinking about Lyla and Sara and Carly and AJ. Oliver. Think about Thea.”

Oliver blanched. With the adrenaline of fight or flight and the need to save Felicity, his sister hadn’t even crossed his mind until Dig had recalled it to Oliver’s memory. 

It turned out he really didn’t have a choice. 

If it was his own soul on the line, Oliver wasn’t afraid to put Felicity first. She would always be first. 

Second only to the city. 

Oliver had done this only once before and he still felt guilty about it. Felicity was at a real risk with Slade’s sword to her throat. Just like she was now. Oliver believed, however, that this was worse. She was already dying. 

Stubbornly, he didn’t move.  “Where is that damn ambulance?” Oliver snapped, his trembling bloody hands still cradling the escaping life in Felicity. He would wait until the ambulance got here. Then he would save the city. 

“Oliver.” Felicity drew his attention again. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be just fine. Go. The city is more important than me. Please. If I live and thousands die, I would wish I was dead.”

“Felicity, I need you. No. No! I need you, you can’t die on me.”

She huffed. “Oliver.”

His eyes bore into her. “Promise me,” the words ringing back to the times she had asked him that, once with Cyrus Gold and the other with Ra’s. For both, he had come back.

“I promise.”

Dig interrupted their small bubble of awareness.  “Oliver go! I’ve got her! I saw the Vertigo when I was coming in but I needed to get to Felicity. It’s on the west side, besides the chemical influx container. There was a five minute timer on it. If you hurry, you’ll make it in time.”

“Oliver, go. I’ll stay awake until you get back.” Felicity coughed, heaves rocking her chest. “Dig, it hurts to breath.”

“I know Felicity.” Oliver heard Dig reply as he reluctantly left her, sprinting full speed into the water treatment plant. “He’ll be back. Felicity. HEY! Felicity! Keep your eyes open. Keep them trained on me.”

Oliver hoped she did. She had promised after all. And if he knew Felicity Smoak, she always kept her promises. 

The adrenaline, his anxiousness to get back to Felicity, and desire to save the city - his city - allowed Oliver to run faster than he had ever run before. Weaving in and out of machinery, ducking past pipes, and splashing though water, he made it to the device in record time.

And what a device it was.

The contraption sat on one of the chemical injection tanks, the turbines of water ten feet below him churning the dark murky water. The roar blocked out anything he could hear in his ear of Diggle whispering to Felicity. If she changed states in anyway, he wouldn’t know, not being able to distinguish Dig’s voice from the cascading water. A large vial of Vertigo was connected to what was very similar to a bomb. Multi colored wires ran from the tube to the countdown timer, which was at thirty seconds. 

Oliver immediately clamped down his hands against his ears, his bow safe tucked away in… he realized that he didn’t have his quiver or his jacket on. Luckily he had his side quiver. Cupping his ears, he yelled as loud as he could to Diggle, hoping that by some Miracle, his brother in arms could hear him.

“I need to know what wire to cut. It looks like a normal pipe bomb but I don’t remember if it’s the red or yellow one! Can you ask Felicity!?”

Faintly he could hear Dig respond. “Oliver! Felicity says the yellow one. Quickly Oliver, she’s fading fast!”

Pulling out a flechette and no further thoughts of indecisiveness, he cut through the yellow wire. 

The countdown stopped.

A breath he didn’t know he was hold released, but the worry didn’t go away. Only one problem was stopped and the other one was now the priority. 

Snatching the vial, he raced back to Felicity’s side. She was barely conscious, eyes blinking like madly.

“Hey, Felicity I’m here. I’m right here. But don’t you dare go anywhere that I can’t follow. Dig! Where is that ambulance?!”

He shook his head. “I’m on the phone with Laurel,” he gestured to the Bluetooth. “They’re two minutes out. Felicity hold on for two minutes. Count to 120.”

“No. There’s something I want–need to do. Oliver,” She rasped, catching his hand that had drifted again back to her thigh. “In–in ….my pocket… there is …paper. Get. It.”

Oliver carefully reached in, grasping the red tinged paper. Hesitantly, he opened it. Felicity was dying; whatever was on that must be important. 

As he started to read, he realized what it was: Felicity’s wedding vow. 

“Felicity, _no_. You’re going to live.”

“Oliver… we both…know…that there’s a chance that-t I might not-t-t make it. Please.  _Please_. Just in case.”

He felt salty tears start to leak down his face. 

“Okay, Felicity. I’ll marry you right now. But later, we will get married. In a chapel. Felicity, you are going to wear that white dress that you and Thea bought last week. You hear me? This is nonnegotiable. I want to see you walk down the aisle to me and make me the happiest man in the world.”

“Of course.”  She tried to smile, it coming out more like a grimace. “Will you read my vows?”

Oliver did, quietly and with great emotion.

“Oliver, you have told me some of the most ridiculous lies, from ‘my coffee shop is in a bad neighborhood’ to ‘I ran out of sports bottles’. But one thing you have always told me that I know has always been a truth is that you trust me. I know for you trust is everything, and something you hold close to your heart. And for me to be right next to your heart is one of the many things I’ve wanted. 

“I love you Oliver Jonas Queen and I promise to protect your trust with your heart. I promise to be your partner, your confidante and your best friend. I promise to always tell you when you’re wrong. But most of all, I promise to love you, Oliver Queen, just as your love has struck me through the heart like an arrow. 

“Oliver, you always tell me how much light I bring into your life, but you have no idea how much light you’ve brought into mine.

“I love you and would love to be your wife.” Oliver’s voice broke on the last word. He gripped Felicity’s hand tight, whispering her name over and over again, kissing her knuckles. 

“Your turn Oliver.”

He huffed a laugh. Somehow, even in the darkest of times, she could always bring a sliver of light into his life. He couldn’t help but grin, remembering his poor pitiful rejects of that morning crumpled around him as he tried to put into word how she made him felt. In truth, what she was to him was indescribable.

“I’m not as magnificent with words as you are, Felicity. But I can try. I’m not promising it will be great.”

“It will be from you so I will cherish it for as long as I live.” At her choice of words, both of them cried just a bit harder. Oliver briefly glanced up at Dig. He mouthed one minute at Oliver. 

“After the Gambit went down, my life was dark. Nothing was right in the world. Friends were enemies and enemies were friends. People I thought I could trust betrayed me and my most hated foes became my greatest allies. I killed people, not because I enjoyed it but because it was necessary. 

“For a time I was an assassin. I worked for ARGUS and Amanda Waller. My codename was Island and I did what Amanda wanted.” Dig looked at him in shock when he recognized the codename. Obviously, Lyla had heard of him and had told Dig the story of ‘Island’.

“One time she wanted for me to kill my best friend. Another she wanted me to stop a Triad sell. What I’m getting at is… well… I came home. Round 2010. I was in Starling under the thumb of Amanda Waller. We needed some info from QC, so I snuck in at night and stole it off my father’s old computer. However, I was interrupted before I could escape by a blonde IT girl.

“You Felicity, walked into my life without even knowing it, during the darkest two days of that year. Being so close to home yet so far was heart-wrenching, but just seeing you made it better. Even then, you brought light into my life. 

"Felicity you say that you are next to my heart, when really you ARE my heart. When I first came back I didn’t think I had anything left. I thought I was broken and empty. But when I met you things changed in so many ways. For the first time in years I felt whole, I felt like a person, not a monster or tool. You always tell me that there’s another way and I always believe you, no matter how bad things are. That’s why I’m telling you this, there’s no other way I will live without you.

“You once asked if I had any happy stories. Well Felicity, you, are my happy story.”

She smiled slightly, before gasping, back arching in pain.

Panicked, Oliver held her, talking to her constantly. “Breathe! Felicity breathe. You can do this. I”m right here. Don’t you die on me! You have to live! We have to get married. We have to finished. Dig?”

Dig quickly, and quite efficiently, ran through all the questions he could remember from his own two weddings. No rings were exchanged, their _‘I do’s’_ muttered faintly. It felt almost like the wedding from the Princess Bride, with the priest uttering Mawwage. But this was no laughing joke. In the eyes of his beloved and his best friend/ brother, they were married. 

“You may now kiss the bride.” 

Oliver kissed her chastely, ripping away when he heard the calls of “Paramedics! Is anyone here?!” 

“Go Oliver! They can’t know that you’re you. GO!” Dig motioned him away.

Oliver Queen had never been indecisive. Survival. That was the only choice. Then, heroism. Saving people. But now it was leave  _his wife_ or save his identity. The sudden sensation of an overwhelming confusion instantly clouded his mind like thick fog at a river bank. It formed a thick ticking sound, almost like the constant, hypnotizing ticking of a clock in his head. Time was running. Felicity was dying. He couldn’t leave her.    
  
“Oliver,” the feeling of cold fingers brushing his palm jerked him out of his reverie. The seven skies were trapped in Felicity’s eyes. A sinful blue. A fading blue. Like the innocent blue of early morning. Felicity’s golden crown of hair was tangled, pasted with blood and sweat against her forehead. Her slowly filling eyes glimmered with tears.   
  
“Oliver you can’t let them know who you are. Not for me,” she whispered. And Oliver, the man who raged like thunderstorms and lightning, broke at that instant.   
  
“Felicity, I can’t —”  
  
“You’re a hero,” she weakly pulled her lips in a pale smile. And despite the circumstances, it was the most original and innocent thing he’d seen. He let himself get lost in her lips and her eyes as her chest jerked rapidly and blood spewed out of Felicity’s lips. A thick and consistent flow of red. Felicity stilled. And the world froze around him. 

* * *

Oliver knelt in front of a headstone, head bowed. Much had happened in the last month that needed atonement. Though he had saved a city, it still felt like he had failed.  
****

Failed her.

Reaching out he ran a finger over the engravings, tracing a familiar name. Thirteen letters beneath his callused thumb. At the simple act, tears came unbidden, carving a river down his cheek.

“I’m so sorry. I wasn’t the man you thought I was when I was alive and I know I failed you. I failed so many people. But you. You were the one to change all that. I always tried to live up to your expectations of me.

“Today, this is changing. Because I’ve met a wonderful girl and she loves me and I love her. Not like you and me. The love between us was different, friend to friend. You always trusted me.

“So no matter what, you will always be my best friend. She might be replacing you in that role, but you came first.

“But I realized today that I never said thank-you. Thank-you for believing in me, thank-you for never losing faith that I was alive. Thank-you for taking care of Thea when I couldn’t.”

Oliver couldn’t continue, emotion choking the word down. Only when a small hand was placed on his shoulder could he regain any sort of composure.

He glanced up, looking at his salvation, then back down to the thirteen letters.

_Thomas I. Merlyn._

Felicity ran her hand down his arm to his fingers, entwining her hand with his.

“Come on, Oliver. The time for tears is over.”

He smiled up at her, wiping away some errant drops. Oliver stood, whispering, _Goodbye Tommy,_ to the headstone and then helped Felicity gather up her white train, then extending a hand to help her walk. Hand in hand, one limping, the other assisting, they left the cemetery looking forward to the rest of their lives.

   

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at [geniewithwifi ](http://geniewithwifi.tumblr.com).


End file.
